Old school Disney blended with 2016 magic makes Pete’s Dragon an utterly enrapturing experience

PETE’S DRAGON

(PG) 103mins

I WAS only six when I saw the original 1977 Pete’s Dragon and it has stuck with me ever since.

I adored dragon Elliott and the use of animation with live action blew my tiny mind.

So when an invite to see the remake appeared, I wondered if it would still have the same effect on kids.

I sent my two youngest sons to Disney to review it.

Would two boys obsessed with shark attacks, YouTubers and fart jokes see the charm in a classic kids’ movie about a dragon?

Here Buzz, eight, and Jasper, 11, give their verdict.

Buzz’s VERDICT

IT was scary when the hunters found the dragon.

They were trying to shoot him because of all the stories that they had heard.

The film made me feel sad – not all the way through, but when Elliott couldn’t be with a family, I was sad.

Elliott can turn invisible! That was really cool.

If Pete could have turned invisible too would they have been able to stay together?*

The actor who was Claire in Jurassic World (Dad – Bryce Dallas Howard) was really nice to Pete.

* I informed him that, in real life, the authorities would probably put Pete into care and use Elliott the dragon for either scientific experiments or more likely shoot him. (Not really.)

Jasper’s VERDICT

MY favourite character is Elliott because he’s an awesome and friendly dragon.

The film is a bit sad and funny but all is good at the end.

Not to mention it makes me feel like having a dragon myself.

The funniest bit was when the dragon sneezed on Pete.

The exciting bit was on the bridge when Elliott started breathing fire!

I would definitely recommend the film to EVERYONE!

I think the whole story was a bit wonky* but apart from that it was great.

The effects were good. Elliott looked real, his fur was really cool.

It had a nice ending. Mum was crying a LOT!

* By “wonky” he means he’d have liked there to have been more build-up into the big reveal of Elliott – more suspense.

Jamie's VERDICT

DAD’S NOTES: It takes a lot for an eight-year old boy to admit he’s been crying but Pete’s Dragon well and truly set off the waterworks.

The boys were utterly enraptured. This is old-school Disney using 2016 magic.

The story is as charming as it ever was and Elliott is just the right ratio of cuddly to fearsome.

A heart-warming film. The boys gave it 4.89 out of 5.

★★★★★

THE SHALLOWS

(15) 86mins

Film Studio: So, what have you got? Make it good! Make it sellable! Sexy! Frightening! Millennials LOVE that kind of stuff!

Producer: Well, this is a dystopian look into how the collapse of the Latvian economy and Maoism forces an Eastern European shopkeeper to...

Studio Executive: Are you deaf?

Producer: (Sigh) OK. Blake Lively is on holiday mourning the death of her mother and...

Studio Executive: Surfing.

Producer: What?

Film Studio: Surfing. Lots of odd slo-mo shots of her zipping up a wetsuit that’s too small as an excuse to focus the camera on her...

Producer: ... I’m not sure she can surf.

Film Studio: So what. Spend ten dollars CGI’ing her head on to someone else. Make it look really obvious. Like they did with Oliver Reed in Gladiator, but worse.

Producer: Err, well OK. So, she’s surfing while mourning the...

Film Studio: Massive shark attack and she has to fight for her life? Not been a decent shark movie since Jaws. People love sharks.

Producer: Err, I’m not sure how that fits the...

Film Studio: And the shark traps her and she’s barely dressed and no one knows she’s there and...

Producer: Who does she talk to? How do we tell a story?

Film Studio: Make her talk to herself weirdly. Maybe she could inexplicably start talking to the shark? I dunno, you’re the clever one. It’ll be like 127 hours in a bikini.

Producer: So, she’s stuck at sea for weeks and at death’s door...

Film Studio: Too long, 36 hours should be enough. Wrap the film up really quickly too. Have something so spectacularly ludicrous that people can’t even remember their own names. Make them speechless, then furious, then laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it.

Producer: This is insane. I can’t...

Film Studio: (Writes cheque the size of Brazil’s GDP).

Producer: We’ll shoot next week.

Film Studio: (Snaps KitKat).

★★☆☆☆

NERVE

(15) 96mins

THIS is not a film for a 42-year-old man. I understand that. So I won’t get too angsty.
Nerve is a drama/thriller about a mysterious online game called, erm, Nerve.
It is essentially Pokemon Go created by Jackass.
It’s cut like a music video from start to finish – graphics and icons are EVERYWHERE.
It’s part movie, part Backstreet Boys video.
Vee Delmonico is a girl trapped on Staten Island with a dream of making it big.
Within five minutes, she is playing Nerve.
The dares and money escalate and the danger is tantamount to committing hara-kiri on Facetime for a Bitcoin.
Obviously the teenagers learn stuff about themselves etc but things soon go horribly wrong...
I’m being flippant, but there is a lot to enjoy here.
The cast are all pretty good and there are some proper bum-clenchingly tense set-pieces involving ladders and motorbikes.
My 18-year-old will lap the whole thing up and start learning how to code.

★★★☆☆